NYC

NYC; In This House, A Little Girl Had a Question

By Clyde Haberman

Published: December 23, 2003

THE lines were long outside Lord & Taylor over the weekend as people checked out the Christmas display in the store's front windows.

(Pre-emptive memo to the thought police: yes, ''holiday display'' is probably the preferred usage in these cautious times. But why kid ourselves? There was nary a reference to Hanukkah or Kwanzaa.)

The theme of this year's display is a New York classic. It is the story of an 8-year-old girl, Virginia O'Hanlon, who lived at 115 West 95th Street. She sent an inquiring letter one day to The New York Sun, her father having told her that when the newspaper said something, it was so.

(Another parenthetical thought: this took place in 1897, long before rogue journalists, abetted by scandal-hungry book publishers, found credibility to be less profitable than making up stories or stealing work done by others.)

Young Miss O'Hanlon wanted to know if there truly was a Santa Claus, a question that arose because some of her more skeptical ''little friends'' had told her he did not exist. As you may have already guessed, the response was an essay in The Sun that remains, through 106 years of abiding cynicism, a secular affirmation of faith. It is also, without question, the best-known newspaper editorial in American history.

''Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,'' said the editorial, which appeared on Sept. 21, 1897, and was written by Francis Pharcellus Church. ''He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.''

The Lord & Taylor windows tell the ''Yes, Virginia'' story in a fashion that is handsome and enchanting, if not entirely faithful to fact.

One scene shows Virginia -- who lived until 1971, by the way -- going to the post office with her father. They are wearing winter clothes. Snow is on the ground. Unless global warming has been more severe over the last century than we realized, it seems unlikely that it snowed in New York in September 1897.

But why quibble? More important is that the store made the effort to relive a small but singular moment in New York history. That is more than may be said of the city itself, even though Francis Church's essay includes some of the most frequently quoted words ever written in these precincts.

''It is the most enduring editorial of all time,'' said Richard Church Thompson, 80, a distant relative of ''Cousin Frank'' who lives in Gaithersburg, Md.

In 1997, the 100th anniversary of the editorial, Mr. Thompson tried in vain to persuade the United States Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp. Now he sees merit in putting a plaque or some other form of public recognition at the site where the story began, the row house at 115 West 95th.

The house lacks any grandeur that it once may have had. When visited the other day, it showed no sign of life. Tiles at the front gate were broken. Intercom buzzers did not work. Windows were boarded up.

A PLAQUE there seemed right to Thomas Vinciguerra, a deputy editor at The Week magazine and something of an expert in the history of ''Yes, Virginia.''

''This is a city that needs to preserve its heritage, great and small,'' Mr. Vinciguerra said. ''We're talking about a plaque, a minimum of fuss. To my mind, it's a payback for something that has provided so much joy.''

One problem with this city is that it is cursed with a shaky memory. It can be extraordinarily cavalier about its past, said Michael Miscione, a New York writer on a mission to honor Andrew Haskell Green, a 19th-century urban planner.

To Mr. Miscione, Green is New York's ''forgotten visionary,'' the mastermind behind such gems as Central Park and the Public Library, not to mention the very idea of a Greater New York formed by the present five boroughs. Yet the only monument to him is a hard-to-find bench in Central Park.

Mr. Miscione faults politicians. ''They can be oversentimental and partisan, leading to wild inconsistencies in how they mark our history,'' he said. ''That's why a million times more people have heard of Major Deegan than Andrew Green.''

As for Virginia, he said, why not a plaque on 95th Street?

Why not indeed, said Mr. Vinciguerra. ''It's nice to know.'' he said, ''that something that's almost mythic, like this story, has real people and a place in time and in space in this vast city.''